What makes a good MMO?: How wiz can improve by borrowing MMO concepts
It goes without saying that w101 is without a doubt an extremely unique MMO. The unique design of the game also allows for a lot of interaction between players which some MMO's decidedly lack. It's ironic then that despite having so many interacting players and so many richly developed worlds and areas, that the design of wiz inhibits player's ability to experience it's best content.
Note: I'm aware that this post is long, but it's my hope that any devs reading this at least consider each point I am going to make here and keep it in the back of their heads moving forward Ok so you may be asking yourself what I mean by "the game inhibiting itself." well I believe that the game itself suffers from 3 major issues, which can be resolved by borrowing ideas from other MMOs on the market.
Despite having a large community, almost all content in this game is designed for 1-4 players.
Due to how the progression works in this game, all worlds other than Wizard City and the most recent world quickly become dead content.
Players of MMOs want to feel as if they actually have an impact on the game they are playing
Wizard101 is an MMO. Why is it then that we can only really play with 3 other people at once? Don't get me wrong, I understand that there is a VERY good reason combat has a max player count of 8, but just because you can only cram 4 players into one side of a battle circle doesn't mean that you can't create content which allows for more players. Beastmoon is a great example of how you can allow more players into one piece of content. More specifically: Monster Mayhem shows the potential wiz has to support largescale PvE content (like raids from other MMOs), and the PvP Beastmoon shows that despite there being a limit on the amount of players in a battle, you can still pit larger groups of players against eachother. In my experience though, players are not fans of the beastforms and would prefer to do similar content with their wizards which they spend so much time and effort creating. (Additionally the PvP Beastmoon mode is fundamentally flawed because it is too reliant on player movement which is far too janky to work smoothly) The devs have some good ideas about making largescale content despite the limitations of wiz, but I also believe that the game can benefit heavily from having a better group or guild system in place, and allowing these large groups of players to interact. Wiz has tons of beautiful worlds to go and explore, but the problem is that once you quest through them there is little to no reason to go back. Sure the atmosphere is great, but nobody says "I'm going to go to Avalon real quick just to soak it in." It's because of this that players usually hang out in wizard city, or wherever the most relevant PvE content is (usually the last major dungeon or the latest world.) There needs to be relevant endgame content in all of the worlds in order for players to actually breath life into them. This may seem difficult to implement, but I have a solution which I think would serve the game well. Let me first touch on the last problem before I get into that. This is not just a problem with wiz, but a problem with all major MMOs right now (the genre is relatively stagnant as of 2021.) Players want to feel like they have a chance to shape the world that they are inhabiting. The closest thing which wiz has had recently to this was voting on which spells they want to be trainable on twitter. I don't think that twitter is the most enjoyable medium for players to shape the game though. What players want is to feel like their actions in game are what changes the world of w101. Let me give you a couple of examples of ways that other MMOs have done this. One such MMO is Black Desert Online. BDO (despite having lots of glaring issues with it's design wizard manages to sidestep) engages it's players with the world in many ways. A minor example I can think of which they added recently is for their fishing content. They added a super rare item obtainable by fishing that when you collect all the pieces of said item, you can summon a world boss and the first person to do this (a very big commitment) gets to have a unique title and NPC made after them. I'm not saying that making grindy content is the direction the game should take, but high-commitment players should be rewarded. For instance, what if the top players (PvP or Decathletes) actually got to have a unique spell(think steal pip)/title or got to have a say in an upcoming piece of content. I guarantee you the community would be much more engaged with the game then. Another way BDO engages players in the world is their "node war" system. I'll spare you the details but essentially every week guilds have an opportunity to fight for "control" of segments of the world which gives them special bonuses for controlling each "node." I think that (despite being hard to implement) a similar system for wiz would solve all 3 issues I outlined. Large groups of players would have something to do, have a reason to go back to all of the old worlds, and will feel like their actions actually impact the world. There's this one open world PvP battle circle in Avalon, and every time I pass it I can only think about what a shame it is that it gets no use. Alright that's all I have to say. I realize it's unreasonable to expect that the solutions I suggested are actually implemented, but I hope that they at least give the developers ideas as to how the 3 issues I outlined can be tackled and make W101 a more engaging and fun game.
(As a side note I am really looking forward to the new stat and lore audits coming! If any devs made it this far I hope that you at least acknowledge this post with a reply of some sort so I know that I'm not screaming into the void here...)
Re: What makes a good MMO?: How wiz can improve by borrowing MMO concepts
I think that some sort of Wizard101 equivalent of a "raid." Would be welcomed by the community for the most part. I just worry about the technical side if you have too many players trying to join the same server at the same time.
I agree that Twitter is poor way to solicit player feedback/input. It might seem "easy" but I feel like you get a very disproportionate view on Twitter. Twitter I also feel is very toxic, but that's a conversation in and of it's own right. The Website or Launcher would be much more preferable terms of soliciting feedback. If you're on the launcher then you are actually playing the game as opposed to some random person that hasn't touched the game in 5 years and only followed the Twitter because they saw that Mr. Beast liked Wizard101. I also think you have to realize that some older player and younger players too are not on Twitter/Social Media. I'm not saying abandon Social Media entirely, but I feel that relying on one platform exclusively is not a wise idea.
The original author stated that most players dislike Beastmoon. This is inaccurate. I'm sure some players dislike Beastmoon for the reasons listed, but others like it for the reasons listed. Having the standardized forms levels the playing field and having the upgrades allows for players to still "grind" to have better, but doesn't penalize players that can't afford that much time to play. I and others also like the combat system and style. I think that Beastmoon has good potential moving forward.
I don't think that the desire to shape the world is quite as universal as the original author claims, but I still think it's a worthy option to explore.
The author also speaks about "dead" content between the first and final worlds. I feel like Whirleyburley is a huge culprit here. Since it's unavailable in a F2P area no one is ever on the queues. It feels like a waste of resources (I know the KI team said they had fun making it, but as a player I feel like it was a waste of time if it's not being used.) It also suffered in that at launch the instructions were VERY unclear, this has since been improved upon to some extent though. I feel like there is a lot of potential to revisit old worlds, and they have started to do this a little bit in some of the later quests, but I think that having reasons to visit old worlds brings more life. Here are some thoughts on those ideas:
Having the main story revisit NEW areas in Old Worlds would allow for new Art Assets to be developed that could be used in new areas and to retexture the old areas as well. I and other Wizards have expressed interest in a graphical update to other worlds beyond Wizard City. Imagine that We have to return to Krokotopia to find a powerful reagent for a spell, but it's hidden deep in a previously undiscovered part of the Krokosphinx. That new dungeon could have the same layout as an old Krokosphinx dungeon, but the art could also be used to mix and match in the old area as well.
Bonus's for Certain areas. IF you are in Reagents Square your Health/Mana are restored 2x as fast.
Merchant Quests: It would be amazing to go on Quests to buy and sell magical items from various vendors to make a profit.
A Bazaar Specific to another worlds Perhaps like a Mooshu Auction House that you can sell No Trade Gear to and pay a fee to actually let you trade it to another character.
A Bazaar Specific to another world like a Mirage's Bazaar: Allows you to put an item up for auction to be sold only to a specific player (facilitating player item trades without the chance that someone nabs your precious item).
Side Quests in lower worlds that involve common area enemies, but offer high level rewards.(i.e. a quest that offers Spellements to defeat 10 Rotting Fodders (probably would want to do a higher level like in ZF or AZ) but out in a common area where people that need help with the main quest could get help.
Second Teleport button to a "Bound World" i.e. Port to Commons button, but also Port to Bastion Button.
Some of the issues with putting things in other worlds is then that Free to Play or more importantly low level characters can't access them. If there was a way that low level characters COULD access these areas that would be good and give a tease of what the world contains and looks like. So maybe they could take a boat or use a Transportaler like in Pirate101 if they don't have Spiral Door Access to reach some of these worlds. OR the new area can be in a hub area that connects to the Actual World. For example, like how Aquila is accessable from Cyclops Lane or that Beastia is like a separate island from the Main world.
Re: What makes a good MMO?: How wiz can improve by borrowing MMO concepts
We know that in the past, KI has favored twitter over Facebook. I have commented that if they really want opinions, they should plaster polls everywhere; twitter, facebook, the launcher, and here. This way you'll get a bunch more replies than just the "localized" input from twitter.
Re: What makes a good MMO?: How wiz can improve by borrowing MMO concepts
I really like the idea of revisiting old worlds with new areas, as that gives them more meaning and brings players back to familiar areas. It's been a while, but I think I remember that P101 does this to some extent, at least briefly making the player return and go to a previously inaccessible area or talk to established npcs. A good example of this already being done would be the intro to Azteca making you go to Marleybone, and I'd love to see more of that.
Note: I'm aware that this post is long, but it's my hope that any devs reading this at least consider each point I am going to make here and keep it in the back of their heads moving forward
